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It's great to see some of the effort that has been put into smartphones and tablets being applied to more traditional (and more functional) form factors.

Haswell Celeron or Bay Trail do seem like a better match for this type of device, and a streamlined, more secure Windows, would make a better mainstream OS, but I'm not sure we will see that combination at this price point.Reply

The only gripe I have with the HP Chromebook 11 is the shorter 6 hr battery life compared with the 8hr battery life of the Acer 720 due to the HP's brighter screen and 2 cell battery instead if the Acer's 3 cell battery, even though the passively cooled HP draws less power than the Acer.

The HP's screen is a lot better - better than the Macbook Air 11" even, and the speakers, keyboard, trackpad and build quality are also better. The passive cooling makes the HP completely silent, and more reliable because it has no moving parts. The Acer has a CPU cooling fan. The micro USB charger is a big plus.

The Acer is a little faster but not significantly - only 25% to 30% faster in terms of web benchmarks. The Acer has 4GB of RAM, which is useful if you have the habit of keeping open a large number of tabs, but the 2GB RAM in the HP is OK if like most people you don't have a large number of tabs open or try to play more than one movie at a time.

The HP lacks the HDMI port, USB 3.0 port, an Ethernet port, and the SD card port found on the Samsung ARM Chromebook. However the first three are not really a loss because the microSD port supports Slimport adapters which can give you an HDMI or Displayport output (when you are not charging) http://www.slimportconnect.com/ . The only thing that the USB port on a Chromebook is used for is to download files to, so the speed of the USB 3.0 will not be of any benefit. The only advantage of the USB 3.0 allows charging of the device it is on from a USB socket on another device, but since the HP already has a MicroUSB socket, this function is redundant. Again, like the Samsung ARM Chromebook, you can plug an Ethernet adapter into the USB socket if you want a wired connection. The lack of an SD card is a pity, but you can always use a USB flash drive if you need it. I guess Google is trying to reduce the number of sockets in the case for aesthetic reasons while maintaining the same functionality.

Having said all that I am still going to plum for the Acer. Why? Because of the battery life, and because of the option of running Linux on it with Chrome OS - for which the 4GB RAM and the Smartcard slot for more Flash memory.Reply

Speaking of the Haswell Chromebooks, will the Acer C720 be reviewed? I think this is the more interesting product as it seems to have great battery life and solid performance. It compromises on the display quality, but for $250 and the ability to install a different Linux distro, it looks like a great portable laptop.Reply

but it sounds like the situation is far more limited with ARM compared to x86.....

"On an ARM Chromebook like the Samsung Chromebook, you’re a bit limited in what you can do. Some programs don’t run on ARM, so you can’t run Minecraft and other closed-source applications that haven’t been compiled for ARM Linux. You have access to a variety of open source tools and desktop applications that can be recompiled for ARM, but most closed-source applications won’t work on ARM.

On an Intel Chromebook, you have much more freedom. You could install Steam for Linux, Minecraft, Dropbox, and all the typical applications that work on the Linux desktop, using them alongside Chrome OS. This means that you could install Steam for Linux on a Chromebook Pixel and gain access to a whole other ecosystem of games — if you were crazy enough to buy a Chromebook Pixel, of course."Reply

And do what exactly? Bay Trail's GPU is even weaker than that last year Mali GPU. If Microsoft didn't build Windows RT the right way, to take advantage of legacy apps, I'm glad at least Chrome OS is ramping up competition for Intel in notebooks.Reply

That doesn't make any sense. If you want Windows RT with legacy apps... that's regular Windows. There's no way to build WinRT with support for legacy apps because that would defeat the entire point of it. I'm glad of the competition, but I don't see why WinRT's lack of legacy app support is a deal breaker that pushes you to another platform... that also has no legacy app support (and is a much less fully featured OS besides).

Besides the cheap hardware, I don't see any reason to choose ChromeOS over Windows RT. Unless you just really, really hate Metro, I guess.Reply

Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think there is a proper clamshell device running RT. The tissue keyboard simply sucks.Maybe we will get a new Chromebook pixel with a better silicon at a slightly higher price.Would be interesting.M.Reply

Yeah I would say similar thoughts as Klug4Pres. I think the better CPU is needed today and also for future uses. This could be the rebirth of the EEE PC era, but in a different form factor (bigger). I think people are looking for cheap and quality built basic PC's for the basics. I know tablets can take that factor up to some extent, but having the built in keyboard w/decent performance and a good screen is what most people like.I have the Acer V5 (won on Anandtech!) and it is quite an interesting laptop. It has a similar 11.6" screen size, but comes w/4 AMD Temash cores and Windows 8. I like the quick boot up from a cold start and the form factor is quite nice for light and portable. I have a 15.6" laptop that I use also, but it can be a bit heavy/bulky for some situations (couch/bed positions).This Chromebook looks quite interesting at the price point, but as Anand stated, it should have a better CPU in it for multi-tasking.Reply

Let me see here. Pay $279 for a laptop with crappy keyboard/touchpad, god awful performance (can't even stream HD youtube), ZERO multitasking abilities, is essentially a glorified browser that can't do anything outside of the Google ecosystem, and has ABYSMAL 4 hour battery life for an ARM processor.

There is absolutely no reason to get this over any of the upcoming 8.1 Bay Trail hybrids/netbooks coming out this fall. The Asus T100 is an infinitely better buy in every way. Spend the extra $50 and you get a significantly better machine in every aspect that can do everything the Chromebook can do better.

There is a reason why Chromebooks have something like 0.02% of the marketshare. They absolutely suck in just about every category imaginable. Google fanboys like Anand desperately want to see MSFT dethroned, which is why they pimp such obvious garbage at every turn.Reply

I swear anand has been called a fanboy of every different platform at some point.

That said, I almost agree just not on such extremes. To be fair, I believe he mentioned the keyboard being great and the clickpad being as good as or even better than some more expensive PCs. Similarly, sound and display are good for the price. So you aren't really giving (at least the hardware) engineering credit. It would certainly be nice to see this same machine running windows, if Microsoft would only consider eating into their Windows revenue.Reply

"Although the 11.6-inch display boasts a pedestrian 1136 x 768 resolution, it’s an IPS panel devoid of the sort of color/contrast shift at off-center angles you normally get with a cheap PC notebook."

He acknowledges the low resolution, but explains why it's a decent display nevertheless. An IPS display on a $279 notebook is pretty decent, especially when it has decent color reproduction and blacks. The displays on cheap Windows notebooks are often horrible washed out dim messes without even considering the resolution. Reply

You'd need a somewhat more powerful processor and quite a bit more storage to run windows sensibly which would push the price up a bit - especially so if you kept the SSD storage.

You could drop the build quality of course but, as he says in the review, that just shouldn't happen. With nice, cheap, tablets around with great screens etc, laptops really do need to have this sort of build/screen/storage quality as a baseline.

A lightweight linux would be possible (as per the original netbooks) but Chrome os can probably stand in nicely enough.Reply

iSupply has the cost of 16GB v. 32GB eMMC as about a $9.00 difference. I imagine that to maintain good margins that would put it in the $299 range which from a psychological perspective is a significant increase. I read a study that said that prices ending in 79 seem lower than the actual difference would suggest in a rational market.Reply

Did you even read the review? Have you used this laptop that you claim has a "crappy" keyboard? Anand described the keyboard as excellent, in the same class as the Macbook Air. It's the same size as a MB Air, it weights 2.3 lbs, and it boots up in just a few seconds. Lots of users can live without 1080p YouTube streams, and lots of people are going to buy this and be pretty happy with it.

Also, Anand tested the battery life at between 4.8 and 5.37 hours, so you round DOWN to 4? Who is really the fanboy with an agenda?

The positives are decent (but not good) screen, keyboard is OK, and the price is low.

Why would anyone buy this again?

For $300 you'll be able to get a Venue Pro 8 with Bay Trail, active stylus, Windows 8.1, far better battery life, and a real OS. Plug it into a monitor and keyboard if required for a full PC experience.

Because Android, like iOS, is not suitable for laptops. Also, ChromeOS is completely geared toward cloud aps and cloud storage, basically a machine dedicated to being a browser. Google wants to make money off of the cloud services, not the sales of Chromebooks. They make nothing on the Chromebook itself.Reply

Hum. From my experience with Android tablet, I'd say it is much more suitable for netbook form factor than CromeOS is. From my perspective, CromeOS is like Android with almost everything (beside browser) removed/disabled. How is that more suitable for traditional laptop form factor?

I understand what Google wants to achieve here - tie users into Google cloud services - but it just isn't my cup of tea. Nor is it for pretty much anyone else I know. Saying that it is niche, in it's current state, sounds like huge overstatement. Reply

I agree the 5250 is poor. However, I think battery life is acceptable as an entry level netbook - more expensive ultrabooks can more or less meet these results. The battery life being poor is only relative to the use of a (supposedly) low power ARM chip and compared to tablets.Reply

Well, the performance is very comparable to the current class of 10" tablets, and the screen is marginally larger, but at a lousy resolution (a quarter of the pixel number of a Note 10.1), and a lower brightness. There is really no reason why the battery life of this machine should be this poor. Maybe it can still be fixed by a software update.Reply

I seriously doubt snapdragon 800 would be noticeably better than the exynos dual here, the snapdragon 800 just cannot keep up with any of the single task benchmarks you posted, and although it has four cores there is no more memory bandwidth than the exynos has. Now baytrail on the other hand would be a great improvement.Reply

I really like my original cheap $199 Acer Chromebook. It has lived up totally to my realistic expectations, email, surfing, researching. correspondence and blogging. I use it now more than all my other desktops and laptops and prefer the Chrome OS now by far over iOS, Mountain Lion Mac OS and Windows 8. Simple very fast. I can utilize the scads of add on extensions to complement and add estoeric task specific extensions to do more specific tasks and have not found anything I that I need that I cannot find an app-extension to perform. I find in this age of persvasive presence WiFi hotspots that when I do travel, I can always easily use it online and have not found this a hindrance at all. I have long backed up file on all my machines to both Cloud based services and ext HDs and can replicate those cautionary practice exactly on the Chromebook without a high learning curve. And the setup is nonexistent, it is just easily available. I now await premium Chromebook models to evolve and come out with faster chips, and larger on board memory and storage as Google refines their core Documents Sheets etc. apps to be used offline in the future as well. As an accesssory machine that will surprise the new buyer in that it will easily take over all but the most CPU intensive tasks like big time pix and video editing, it will not disappoint.Reply

I agree completely with the concluding remarks - this looks like the perfect machine, save for the lack of CPU power. Perhaps we'll see a Bay Trail version sometime down the line, and then I'll be quite tempted. For now though, I'll be giving this one a miss.Reply

I am another happy ChromeOS user. I use it a lot in conjunction with a desktop running Chrome on Windows 8. I never expected to use it for photoshop or gaming and I never understood why people hold it against ChromeOS that it cannot do these tasks. No Windows 8 netbook performs these tasks well anyways. Just because you can install it, doesn't mean it works.I won't be buying this Chromebook over my Samsung though. As Anand states, the SoC just isn't very fast and I don't understand why HP releases a product that doesn't have a significant advantage over last years product (like battery life or CPU). If I would buy my first Chromebook now, I would probably wait to see what Samsung releases next or how the Acer is tested. Reply

I doubt if there's a big upgrade market for these things like with phones. Brought to a job at a price, and probably kept while they can still do it.

So worth HP getting into the market, and the screen (and maybe other little bits) is certainly a non trivial upgrade over the Samsung at the same price. Interesting to see what Samsung do in response.Reply

Have they enabled the remote assistance feature for inbound assistance yet? I know the utility can be used to assist others, but as Anand and others have mentioned, this platform is great for individuals who may not be as tech savvy and the less complicated the process of offering assistance the better.Reply

All people who think that ChromeOS is a real option should make a reality-check.

ChromeOS can't do nothing without an internet-connection, so if you're somewhere in the outskirts you can't do jack with this device.

Anyone who thinks that cloudservices are the future should take a reality-check aswell, because you need to ask yourselves, what happens when they decide to out the service to rest, or start charging insane amounts of money etc.

Sorry, I'd rather pay $1000 for a MBA then for a crippled joke like the Chromebook.Reply

You missed the part where ChromeOS now can edit/modify documents offline and run apps offline (and outside of the browser environment). You really should try harder next time you decide to drop in on something you don't care about as much as it seems. That or just stay out of the comments and save the effort.Reply

I wonder why such a barebones OS has such low battery life and poor performance. With the upcoming onslaught of cheap x86 convertible notebooks that run Windows and Android that can do so much more, I don't see these Chrome OS notebooks as a better value.

The only positives that I can see reviewers noting is the simplicity and security, but how important is that nowadays, when Windows 8 comes included with a pretty good anti-virus, does automatic updates etc and even Android is secure enough if one doesn't install apps from unknown sources and only from the marketplace. Plus these Windows 8 and Android convertibles offer amazing power, multitasking and close to 10 hrs of battery life.

Chrome OS has its work cut out if it wants to catch up and not the other way around.Reply

I was very disappointed by the batter life figures. The HP Chromebook 11 and the Asus T100 both have nearly identical battery sizes (30 Wh vs 31Wh respectively) but the Asus has a reported 11 hours of battery life. Clearly Windows 8/BayTrail just blow the ChromeOS/Exynos away when it comes to power managment.

Do you plan on reviewing the Asus T100? Thanks and awesome review!Reply

Why didn't you have the Samsung Chromebook from last year in the comparison? You say this is the successor to it, so I would like to see how favorably/unfavorably in performs. I can assume the display and build quality are better, with the performance around the same.Reply

It's an interesting device, but for someone like me, who has an iPad, I don't really see much that a Chromebook can do that I can't with a tablet+bluetooth keyboard. Sure there are a few applications where you can really use the touchpad, and there are certain apps that you just can't do on a mobile OS, but going to my desktop isn't that inconvenient for those things.

If you don't have a tablet already, then I can see the draw, but for a household that has a tablet, a laptop and a desktop, I'm not sure where this fits in. A real laptop is much powerful and has 90% of the mobility of a Chromebook at maybe 150% of the price (~$450 is a decent base price for a basic i3 laptop). A real tablet is much more mobile, with the same amount of power, 90% of the application at about the same price. I can maybe see this in a household that has a desktop and wants something to blur the lines between laptop/tablet at a low price point, but I don't think there's that much of a market. Reply

Yea Chrome OS is an odd beast. I wonder if the same hardware with android installed would be a better choice?Then again lack of features is the point of Chrome OS. Less features means less can go wrong.Good for grannies I guess.M.Reply

I run into websites with some frequency that won't display correctly in Chrome. For those I use Firefox. So can you install another browser in Chrome OS? Cause if not then you can't even surf the web entirely.Reply

What websites? I have been using Chrome exclusively for the past few years and don't have any rendering issues. I used to be die-hard firefox user, even ran the nightly betas and stuff, but I like Chrome more these days.Reply

HP has a 14" chromebook with an Intel processor, twice the performance and twice the battery life of the 11" one reviewed here, for $300. I imagine the display is not as nice, but still it should serve your needs well.Reply

I just barely saw that actually. VERY intriguing! However they do not list the display resolution anywhere, and I was really hoping for at least a 1600x900 14-15" laptop type device. Chrome OS is fine, I would like at least Bay Trail, or some sort of Haswell Celeron. It would be absolutely perfect for my (wife's) needs. To those who cant figure out where this device fits in, it is for people who dont have a tablet or done want a tablet, but just want to be able to surf facebook, pintrest, and the like. Basically my wife, and all of her family would be perfect for this.Reply

I was trying to think of a use scenario for this, couldn't come up with any. But, if I ever had kids this seems like a good first PC for them. Cheap enough they could abuse it without me worrying too much; able to do most of the things they'd want it to. Then could always keep a family desktop around for school papers; since everyone I know still requires it be in word format. Reply

I think the design is quite great, and also glad to see an IPS display, did those improvements, which seem rather slight to me, really stop them from using a newer ARM SoC (don't be silly with your Bay Trail) or a bigger battery, while also costing $30 more compared to last year's ARM Chromebook? I don't get it.

This year's version should've arrived with a better ARM SoC, twice the battery size (8,000 mAh), micro-USB 3.0 and 4 GB of RAM. And it should've all fitted in about the same price.Reply

This thing needed to have a Tegra 4 in it, slightly bigger battery (I think double is not realistic, but 50%+ definitely) and 4GB of RAM.

If they had come up with that device for $299, I think it would have been a real beauty.

Add to that another SKU with 1080p screen and a 13" form factor for $349 and Google would have had a home run.

As it is, we are again in this weird situation where the Chromebook with the better display/chassis/design/keyboard has an awful SoC, and the one with a respectable CPU and battery life suffers from poor aesthetics and design. What a shame. Reply

That's very user dependent; and the casual web user systems like this are marketed at are very much the use it until it breaks type, not chase the newest and shiniest people.

Until the power jack died a few weeks ago my Mom was happily using a netbook I bought in 08. If an oven-reflow is able to resurrect it, I wouldn't be surprised if she keeps using it until something else breaks.Reply

I wish you had talked about the timing. I assume the primary market is students who don't need anything other than media playback, productivity, and web browsing. The release happened way too late. All those students who could have appreciated it already have devices. I guess HP could hope for some Black Friday sales. I doubt it will fare well against the new crop of netbooks come Christmas.

But damn, I bought the Chromebook 3 literally a month ago and I'm pissed. It's a great device and all, but the display is terrible. Hopefully, the 11 uses the same connectors and I can just buy an LCD off eBay for <$80.

I can definitely see myself using the Chromebook for another year. With flashblock, browsing seems perfectly adequate. More often I find myself longing for better display uniformity and viewing angles, or contrast in well-lit indoor conditions. I rarely wish for more power, although I do observe occasional checkerboxing. And while I agree about the good keyboard (I hate chiclet and that fact that everyone has moved to it), the touchpad could use a higher sensitivity setting. It's a little too slow at the highest setting, although it's probably limited by the low resolution of the touchpad itself.Reply

Forgot to mention, it's a great supplemental device. However, I would definitely not recommend it as a primary computer. I built a great desktop a few years back and have been incrementally upgrading it over time. But you can't lug any kind of tower around to meetings, interviews, conferences, classes or out to a cup of coffee.Reply

I've been using the Samsung A5(?) for about a year now. It's fine. The price makes it easier to carry in a backpack, and let kids use it. What I mean is the shear value is low, so the care and worry about it are less than say, my old MBP.

What bothers me most is the lack of horsepower that shows itself with stammering scrolling, slow page load times, and uneven video playback, even on Youtube - which I find surprising from Google.Other stuff:- The lack of stiffness makes it feel cheap. The mousepad is not smooth and taping, double clicking and other gestures are not always recognized.- I'm a cloud user, so the little on-board storage is not an issue. And I've yet to get any warning on filling what there is.

So I'm looking forward to trying out a newer version. Hopefully it takes care of these concerns, and I can pass my old one down to a kid.Reply

Thank you for this! I actually won one of these recently from Google so I expect it to show up eventually. Based on what I've read, this is basically the Samsung Chromebook in a new case with a better keyboard and screen. I find it odd the product literature keeps talking about how it has a 60% color gamut. I have no idea what that means - 60% of sRGB, 60% of Adobe RGB? Reply

So does the battery test for ChromeBook include loading pages which load Flash? If so could that explain the poor results as Flash is a known CPU hog? How about repeating the Tablet Web Browsing Test (WiFi) for the ChromeBook or disabling Flash and repeating the existing test?Reply

Chrome OS is a joke of an OS, which is why they have roughly 0.02% marketshare.

The only people pimping these obviously inferior solutions are tech reviewers with Google hardons that desperately want to see MSFT dethroned. Sadly, Anand is becoming more and more like them every day.

If a Windows laptop ever came out with this poor peformance, battery life, etc. it would get slammed 6 ways from Sunday. But because this is Google it gets reviewed favorably.

I'd ask yourself why hasn't this site even reviewed the Lumia 1020? Seriously, this POS is more important? Give me a break.Reply

Why does the author keep crediting Google for every feature and design decision of this chromebook? Sure it uses Google Chrome, but I'm pretty sure HP deserves at least some of the credit for the final product.Reply

Give Google and their hardware partners credit for sticking with the Chromebook, despite a lot of resistance. The more improvements they make, the more the Chromebook becomes attractive to more users.

But what about Chromebook users that need to access Windows applications like Microsoft Office, or that want to connect to work applications like CRM and ERP from home? They can try products like Ericom AccessNow, an HTML5 RDP solution that enables Chromebook users to connect to Terminal Servers and/or VDI virtual desktops, and run Windows applications or desktops in a browser tab.

There's nothing to install on the Chromebook, so AccessNow is easy to deploy and manage.

I was also expecting a quad core Exynos rather than the Dual core.I would have been very eager to get myself this chromebook if it featured the Exynos 5420... But I guess that's not the case, so I better just wait...Reply

They should exchange that frame for battery, cpu, and less bulk. Now its like a high quality laptop with a tablet battery and a telephone processor. Like a Model S with Volt internals -- like the cadillac EV: no range or power, but looks and feel good, exempt for the driving.

Give us a fanless, thin, light, all plastic, 1080p, 11", snapdragon 800, Chromebook! It is cheep, it could just as well feel cheap, as long as its snappy and thin/light.Reply

I'd like more info on whether this has an offline office suite. Obviously Google Docs (and Microsoft/Apple's equivalents) should work online, but that doesn't cut it for many (most) uses.

The article says many "apps" can be used offline and outside a traditional looking browser, but I'm wondering if that includes Google Docs, and whether you can use it in a true offline mode that doesn't require syncing.

If you can, Chrome OS might actually be perfect for my mom, as she couldn't screw it up and it's cheap. I plan on getting a Surface 2 for her though probably...Reply